“Spider Monsters”

This is a story from the old Izumo Province. Like the story in the previous entry, it has a wandering monk finding himself the target of trouble.

Although I haven’t really wandered into abandoned temples, you don’t have to in order to find giant spiders everywhere–in late summer and autumn, the colorful Japanese Wood Spiders sit in pairs in the middle of their webs, which are practically clustered among any stretch of branches or bushes, or the very industrious ones make rather ambitious webs stretching up to the tops of power lines. Scary though they might appear (and I’m not putting pictures here for viewers’ comfort, however interesting their appearance is) the humans and arachnids here stay out of each others’ way, and even if they do accidentally wind up in each others’ space, these spiders are not particularly dangerous. To humans, anyway. And that just goes for the normal spiders, anyway–can’t say the same for demonic spiders like in the story.

This story took place a very, very long time ago. One evening, there was a traveling monk making his way between temples. Rain started to fall in heavier and heavier droplets. The sun went down and the rain showed no sign of letting up, so he decided he should find a place to spend the night.

Far away from any villages, he at last found an old, secluded temple. He tried to inquire about the place, but he found nowhere there, and invited himself in to the living quarters meant for the head priest. He found that it was damp, stank of mold, and was filled with spider webs–it had fallen into horrendous ruin. “Well, it’ll be fine,” he decided. “I’ll just keep the fire lit until morning.”

He hurried to gather some burnable sticks from the garden, and then lit it up in the fireplace in the center of the room. The damp and dark room was immediately filled with a warm, red glow. Just as his body was starting to feel a bit warmer, he laid on his side by the fire, and was soon softly snoring.

After some unknown amount of time has passed, he sensed someone moving around, and his eyes shot open. The rain had let up, and through the window he could see the moon peaking out behind the pine trees. Staying completely quiet, he listened carefully.

There was a creak, creaking sound coming from the main hall. They were footsteps, growing closer. Then came the sound of old, broken shoji screens sliding aside.

“Who goes there, in this run down old temple?” he asked as he sat up. At that moment, the shoji screen to the room he occupied slid open, and a woman carrying to a baby stood there. The monk was quite surprised, and said, “I didn’t expect anyone to be living an old place like this.”

The woman took a seat on the floor, and then said in a pretty voice, “Is there any way I could ask you to take of this child for the night? Please don’t ask me why, just take him, please.”

Seeing as he was taking the liberty of staying in that place for the night anyway, and seeing as she had some dire reason for requesting this of him, he accepted.

“Thank you,” she said, then set the baby on the floor and stood up, slipping out of the room just as suddenly as she had come in. Following her exit, the baby, which had been set on his back, rolled over on to his stomach and began crawling towards the monk. One step, two steps, three steps, and so on it came.

The monk thought it was rather strange behavior, but then was distracted by what felt like a rope around his neck. When he tried to lift a hand to it, it started squeezing him with a terrible force. Looking back at the baby, he saw that it was no longer merely crawling, but it had a glint in its eyes as it fixated on him, and then starting sliding straight towards him.

“A monster!” the monk tried to shout, but his voice could not escape his throat.

Then, the baby began to rise towards the crickety ceiling by what looked like a silky thread, and then crawled towards a large hole.

Trying to escape, are you? the monk thought, and grabbed a large piece of firewood from the pit, and threw it at the baby with all the strength he could muster. When hit, the baby cried out with a loud, echoing scream, and this was the last thing the monk heard before he fainted.

Soon enough, morning came, and the monk came to. The hole in the ceiling was still there, and he went up to take a look. What he saw there shocking–many, many human bones scattered about, and two disturbingly large, dead spiders, a parent and child pair, skewered by a sharp piece of firewood.

The traveling monk gathered the bones and buried them appropriately, and buried the spider corpses somewhere deeper, somewhere further away.